this part of the terrace with golden light, the perfume of flowers was
heavy in the air. From the woods came a great song of birds; in the
water below her a fish jumped at intervals--a cool sound on a hot day.
She had this part of the terrace to herself for a little while, but from
another part, round an angle of the house, came the murmur of voices and
sometimes laughter, now a man's, now a woman's. It had all been just the
same before, many, many times, yet now the girl was conscious of a sound
of discord in it. Nothing had really changed. The Abbey was full of
guests, as her uncle loved to have it, many of the same guests who came
so constantly, many of those who had been her companions at Lady
Bolsover's, and yet the world seemed changed somehow. The reason must
lie in herself. Her visit to London had brought enlightenment to her,
although she had only a vague idea of its meaning. She found it
difficult not to shrink from some of her uncle's guests, a feeling she
had not experienced until now. True, she had been brought more in
contact with them during this last week than she had previously been.
They treated her differently, no longer as a child, but as one of
themselves. They spoke more freely, both the men and women, and it
seemed to Barbara that only now was she beginning to understand them,
and that it was this wider knowledge which made her shrink from them.

"I have become a woman; before I was only a girl--that must be the
reason," she said, resting her chin on her clasped hands and looking
down into the depths of the wood on the opposite side of the stream. "I
have been very happy as a child, I do not believe I am going to be happy
as a woman," and then she glanced towards the distant blue hills. The
world was full of sunlight, even though the woods below her were dark
and gloomy.

She looked along the terrace to make certain that no one was coming to